Internet Explorer SSL Vulnerability :: essays research papers

Abstract Internet Explorer's implementation of SSL contains a vulnerability that allows for an active, undetected, man in the middle attack. No dialogs are shown, no warnings are given. ======================================================================== Description In the normal case, the administrator of a web site might wish to provide secure communication via SSL. To do so, the administrator generates a certificate and has it signed by a Certificate Authority. The generated certificate should list the URL of the secure web site in the Common Name field of the Distinguished Name section. The CA verifies that the administrator legitimately owns the URL in the CN field, signs the certificate, and gives it back. Assuming the administrator is trying to secure www.thoughtcrime.org, we now have the following certificate structure: [CERT - Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: VeriSign] -> [CERT - Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: www.thoughtcrime.org] When a web browser receives this, it should verify that the CN field matches the domain it just connected to, and that it's signed using a known CA certificate. No man in the middle attack is possible because it should not be possible to substitute a certificate with a valid CN and a valid signature. However, there is a slightly more complicated scenario. Sometimes it is convenient to delegate signing authority to more localized authorities. In this case, the administrator of www.thoughtcrime.org would get a chain of certificates from the localized authority: [Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: VeriSign] -> [Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: Intermediate CA] -> [Issuer: Intermediate CA / Subject: www.thoughtcrime.org] When a web browser receives this, it should verify that the CN field of the leaf certificate matches the domain it just connected to, that it's signed by the intermediate CA, and that the intermediate CA is signed by a known CA certificate. Finally, the web browser should also check that all intermediate certificates have valid CA Basic Constraints. You guessed it, Internet Explorer does not check the Basic Constraints. ========================================================================== Exploit So what does this mean? This means that as far as IE is concerned, anyone with a valid CA-signed certificate for ANY domain can generate a valid CA-signed certificate for ANY OTHER domain. As the unscrupulous administrator of www.thoughtcrime.org, I can generate a valid certificate and request a signature from VeriSign: [CERT - Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: VeriSign] -> [CERT - Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: www.thoughtcrime.org] Then I generate a certificate for any domain I want, and sign it using my run-of-the-mill joe-blow CA-signed certificate: [CERT - Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: VeriSign] -> [CERT - Issuer: VeriSign / Subject: www.thoughtcrime.org] -> [CERT - Issuer: www.thoughtcrime.org / Subject: www.amazon.com] Since IE doesn't check the Basic Constraints on the www.thoughtcrime.org certificate, it accepts this certificate chain as valid for www.amazon.com. Anyone with any CA-signed certificate (and the corresponding private

Life in the Ocean

Question 1: Parts of Chesapeake Bay were affected by unexpected blooms of a toxic dinoflagellate, Pfisteria piscicida, in 1997. Research those occurrences in the internet, and discuss the blooms and their effects on the local economy. Was it sensationalist press coverage, or a real danger to humans?Ans.:Â  During the summer of 1997, the Chesapeake Bay was reported to have an unexpected bloom of the plankton, Pfisteria piscicida. Experts believed that it was caused by too much pollution from the surrounding districts of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Farms, factories, and towns contribute to the pollution. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, 318 million pounds of nitrogen and 19 million pounds of phosphorus are deposited into the Bay as the result of development, run-off, and air pollutants. Agriculture and poultry operations constitute a large part of the causes of pollution of the Bay. The presence of these pollutants at high concentrations triggered the pfisteria bloom, the result of which was devastating. Thousands of fishes were killed rendering massive losses in the local economy, i.e. seafood sales drop. Maryland alone had lost $43 million in sales. Many people were sick due to the toxins taken from the Bay products which increased expenditure in healthcare and medicine.Pfisteria bloom in the Chesapeake Bay posed a threat to humans as well as other organisms. In Maryland, environmentalists are making some steps to minimize pollution of the Bay. The US government had spent millions of dollars in trying to eradicate the cause of such phenomena.Question 2: Whale watching is considered as a worthwhile environmental activity. Some tour guide operations even allow `whale petting`, as in the Pacific Gray whale nursing grounds in Baja California. `Swim with the Dolphins` operators are popular in Florida, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. Discuss the potential deleterious effects that these inter actions with humans may have on these marine mammals.Ans.:Â  Human activities have substantial effects to the marine environment, especially the marine mammals. Activities like that cause loud underwater noise, deep-water gillnetting and driftnet fishing, pollution, whaling, large-scale industrial fishing, vessel traffic as well as activities like whale-watching, whale-petting, or simply interacting with the marine mammals have deleterious effects to them. The immediate effect of these interactions to the marine mammals is disturbance.Whale-watchers observed that whales are becoming more difficult to search in the open seas because of changes of areas and modes of operation as the result of these disturbances. Visual and acoustic surveys proved that whales are susceptible to acoustic changes, i.e. sound of the vessel engine, as it is there primary mode of communication. Whales and other marine mammals use echolocation in searching for food and other activities (i.e. mating, social contact). Noise from tour boats disrupts the sound signals transmitted and received thereby affecting their senses. This resulted to decline in whale population and other marine mammals. Research also showed that the presence of tour boats in their surroundings causes stress which affects their behavior.Question 3. What fish and shellfish populations are at or below historic levels? What restoration efforts are being revised to manage the most important fisheries more effectively? Discuss these and other issues affecting marine resources RIGHT HERE in Maryland.Ans.:Â  Chesapeake Bay fish and shellfish populations are largely affected by pollution from the surrounding states. Blue crab, oyster, striped bass, Susquehanna shad, and menhaden are some of the species studied. Different strategies used to increase harvest were examined by scientists and natural resource managers. The American shad and the blue crab were found to have increased over the past decade and are no longer below historic levels.This increase was attributed to the responsible fisheries management. Current reports have shown that the Bay’s fish and shellfish are three-fifths away from the desired levels. In this regard, scientists and managers are trying their best to restore the Bay’s abundant estuarine ecosystem. The restoration efforts include the following activities and plans: reducing pollution, maintain restoring habits, responsible fisheries management, watershed protection, and fostering stewardship. Pollution, as the primary cause of death of estuarine species was tackled by different states by enforcing laws that protects the Bay area from ruthless throwing of waste matter, i.e. increasing taxation of industry-scale poultry operations in Maryland. ReferencesSpotts, P.N. (1997). US Pours Money, Expertise into Halting Legal ‘Blooms’ [Electronic Version]. Christian Science Monitor, 10/08/97(United States), 3. Retrieved April 22, 2007, from http://www.whoi.ed u/redtide/notedevents/gennews/generalHABnews.htmlGoodman, P.S. (1998). Ma., Va. Brace for Pfiesteria Outbreaks. The Washington Post, April 5, 1998.Lauhakangas, R. (n.d.). Special Aspects of Sperm Whales and Their Relevance to Whale Watching. Retrieved April 22, 2007, from http://www.helsinki.fi/~lauhakan/whale/education/sc4876.htmlStiffler, L. (2002). Whale-watchers Might be Harmful to Orcas, Study Shows. Retrieved April 22, 2007, from http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/72927_orca01.shtml

Does Population Growth Affect Economic Growth? Essay

Population growth has its own effects on economic growth of a country, which can be negative or positive first we will look in to the negatively effecting factors of population growth: 1) Due to increase in Population Consumption Increases, which will decrease, GNP/GDP and Imports will increase and Exports Fall down Budget Defect is the result and the prices mount high. 2) Miss Use OR Over use of Natural Resources. Due to increase in population Man to Land Ratio decreases. As land is inelastic, one cannot increase the amount or supply of land. 3) Raw-Material or Primary Goods are used or processed directly or indirectly which produce finished goods and yield residues some of it is recycled and some is disposed to nature, which effects it negatively. Therefore, when more and more people depend on land there are more chances of the damage accruing to ecosystem. 4) Effect on PCI, if the population growth does not match the labor force there is a negative effect on PCI. 5) Population Growth and Standard of Living, as increase in population leads to more consumption. ALTERNATIVELY, there are more mouths to feed which effects the standard of living. 6) Population and Agriculture, the pressure on land increases and increase disguised unemployment. 7) Population and employment, unemployment increases due to increase in population. 8) Population and Social infrastructure, pressure increases, as one Doctor has to attend more and more patients similarly in other fields also. 9) Population Increase decreases Capital Formation. 10) Population Increase results in Brain Drain. 11) Population Increase negatively effects Environment as urban slums increase.

Marketing Strategies Of Greenwich Pizza Essay

Greenwich re-invents itself more with a more dynamic â€Å"G† logo to attract more customers. This brand look is also an indication of how attuned the company is with the ever-changing times and evolving customer lifestyles. From its previous dark green and red color scheme, Greenwich stores were redesigned with a contemporary motif using the brighter and more dynamic colors of brilliant green and vivid rose. The new colors and graphics help create a livelier, more inviting ambience in Greenwich stores. In addition to this, the new corporate visual identity graphics exhibit the dynamism of the brand. This new look is also complemented by crunchier and tastier pizza products. With rich loads of toppings on crunchy pizza crust, Greenwich created an ideal balance between the customer’s expectations of product quality and taste and a pleasant dining experience. A whole new look, a whole new Greenwich! This is part of Greenwich’s continuing effort to reach out to pizza lovers all over the Philippines. POWERFUL ADVERTISING Greenwich aggressively harnesses tri-media to communicate all the benefits consumers can enjoy at Greenwich. This is augmented by the use of outdoor advertising materials and merchandising collaterals that help heighten public awareness of Greenwich offerings. All these complete effective campaigns and exciting promotions that inevitably translate to high sales performance. Greenwich focuses its marketing campaign on the yindie groups and the strategy has worked wonders. The term â€Å"yindie† has been around for a while now, although it did not become a buzz word like â€Å"yuppie. †It is defined in dictionaries as an informal term referring to a person who combines a lucrative career with non-mainstream tastes. From a pizza chain that was ranked five years ago somewhere in the bottom of the industry ladder with other small pizza stores, Greenwich has become the No. 1 pizza chain in the country, accounting for at least 60 percent of the P5-billion market. â€Å"Our market share is now bigger than those of the other two major pizza chains in the country, combined,† says Luis U. Velasco III, marketing director of Fresh N’ Famous Foods Inc. , maker of Greenwich pizza and a member-company of the Jollibee Foods group. Velascosaysthecampaignfocusingonthebarkadasstartedwhen,after conducting research five years ago, the company realized it was nowhere to be found in the pizza industry’s list of major players. It was lumped with the rest of small players, which were hardly making a dent in the pizza market. â€Å"We decided that we want our brand to be stronger in the minds of our consumers. We took a closer look at our products, identified our strongest offering, which is pizza, and studied its characteristics. We then looked for the type of market that we wanted to talk to,† Velasco recounts. â€Å"Pizza is a fun product, adventurous considering the many kinds of toppings one can put on it, less formal as you eat it with your bare hands whether sitting or standing and it is a type of food that people enjoy eating when shared,† he says. Given the characteristics of its main product offering, it was decided that Greenwich pizza and the yindies were a perfect match. Just like Greenwich pizza, the yindie market is casual, more adventurous, hip and fun, and interactive and inclusive. As Greenwich turned its focus on this segment of the market, the company decided to level up and redefine itself from being a fast-food to a fast-casual chain of restaurants. â€Å"Our roots are fast food and we are not abandoning it, we are only upgrading the customers’ experience in our restaurants,† Velasco says. To transform into a fast-casual restaurant, Greenwich did a makeover of all of its outlets, improved on its pizzas in terms of quality and the varieties of its offering, made its pastas (especially the lasagna) at par with the offerings of even some fine-dining restaurants in the metropolis, introduced other fun food like chicken wings, offered full meals and even breakfast meals in some outlets. â€Å"We upgraded our looks and our service to customers. Our offerings now are not the usual fast-food type of products anymore,† Velasco says. We have been known as the affordable pizza option, that is fine and we are keeping that. But we also want to be known for good taste, quality service and a part of the barkada. †

Describe labor market trends and globalization as they relate to the Essay - 1

Describe labor market trends and globalization as they relate to the job market. Explain the importance of networking in reaching your career goals - Essay Example There are several pros and cons of informational interviewing. A major advantage of conducting an informational interview is one gets first hand information about working in a particular job or industry (UC Berkeley Career Center, n.d.). It will give an idea of the career paths available for individuals in a particular field. Furthermore, one can get tips from professionals on how to prepare for a certain career. An informational interview enhances one’s communication skills and warms up one for a real job interview. It will be the beginning of establishing professional relationships with people who are in the same industry as one’s career (UC Berkeley Career Center, n.d.). Building of networks like these may later on create job leads in the future. Informational interviewing also has its drawbacks. One must be careful about choosing the professional to interview. If the interviewee is a person who is not happy with his job, then the views that he might share may be biased and will affect the interviewer negatively. Another disadvantage is that some interviewees might misconstrue the informational interview as a request for a job. Some professionals may think that the interviewer is there to gather confidential data about him and his company. The obstacles that will prevent one from conducting an informational interview include not knowing someone whom one can interview. Lack of contacts may make it difficult to get a professional to interview. In addition, there are some professionals who may not be open to the idea of being interviewed about their jobs. Not having the confidence to talk with a professional is another impediment for conducting the interview. Preparing for an informational interview means having to do some research about the person one is going to interview and about his organization (Crosby, 2002). Visiting the company’s website will help a lot in the

Current Events in Public Health LeadershipLeadership Perspective Assignment

Current Events in Public Health LeadershipLeadership Perspective - Assignment Example Sebelius acknowledged that the eight-week period of the health care insurance marketplace roll-out was the lowest point in her work as secretary of Health and Human Services. This is not surprising because the failure has severe political impact on both the Obama administration and the policy itself. Such failure already eclipsed the positive outcomes of the policy, which already enrolled up to 7.1 million Americans (NBC 2013). More importantly, however, it reflected the brand of Sebelius leadership particularly in managing a complex project that could indicate an inadequacy to take the lead in the area of public health. The insurance marketplace roll out required health care enrolment online. A website, HealthCare.gov, was created in order to serve as the primary destination for Americans to buy insurance. Upon its launch, however, it encountered severe connectivity issues, server downtimes and serious inability on the part of users to use the website productively, frustrating many Americans in the process. One could say that Sebelius is not the developer of the website and did not create its code. However, the event demonstrated how she was able to handle one of the most critical programs not just of the health department but also of the incumbent administration. The outcome reflected her performance as a leader of health department. Her leadership style appears to be largely political in nature and this is not surprising because she was a political appointee and was the Kansas governor previously. This goes against the necessity to appoint leaders of public health that have the capacity to understand and, therefore, deal with the complexities and scale of problems and issues in public health. Koh and Jacobson (2009) stressed that public health problems entail special challenges that require long-term solutions and the cooperation of numerous stakeholders (p. 199). Sebelius failed in this respect.

Cultural impact of globalization Research Paper

Cultural impact of globalization - Research Paper Example This has caused significant impact on people’s economic, social, technological, political and cultural aspects. This paper focuses on the cultural effect that globalization has had in the modern world appreciating culture as way humans exist in a community expressed through different forms of their lives. The focus would be on how globalization has caused the emergence of new global professions, pop culture and global village. It would also discuss the effect of globalization on political culture and enhancing cultural liberty, giving the challenges that have limited the influence of globalization. The paper borrows from various secondary sources including articles from scholarly journals and books supported by evidence from newspaper articles. Introduction Globalization is a term that has been widely used in the modern business community worldwide and among governments, scholars and non-governmental organizations among other organizations. In many forums, participants have sought to demystify the gains and disadvantages involved in globalization. Globalization is deemed to have begun before the 1960s with the word being coined by Roland Robertson to describe the expansion of the policy of European colonies to subjugate parts of Africa and Asia and other underdeveloped countries globally (Razak 61). With the expansion of these colonial powers came the influence through language, customs, administration system, culture, law and order with the Europeans justifying their action as an act of bringing civilization to the uncivilized. Other than this historical explanation of globalization, the modern world has attached various meanings to this phenomenon. Also referred to as internalization, it describes the international exchange growth and the global interdependence of countries through adoption of liberalized economies where capital movement restrictions among countries have been withdrawn. It encompasses the free flow of news, information, people and capital from a country to another without subjection to restriction by the respective governments. The term Westernization has also been used by various scholars interchangeably with globalization to describe the replacement of pre-existing cultures in the underdeveloped countries with the Western culture. The impact of globalization is far reaching and encompasses various aspects of human social, economic, technological, environmental, health and cultural endeavors. Studies on culture largely depend on what and how definitions come about and the reasons for having these definitions, which could be used, modified or at times fall into disuse. According to Lieber and Weisberg (275), culture could be said to be the common form of life in a national community where there is a homogeneous lifestyle and value system and national identity forged through modernization or industrialization. It refers to the way of existence among humans expressed through the varied forms of life specific to communities. Just like other resources, culture is subject to the environment which dictates what should be done and what should not. As such, different people would have different cultures with different meanings; it includes belief, art, knowledge, customs, laws and morals. However, the physical environment has no effect on culture; it is the people who come up with cultural resources and control how they would be accessed. From the viewpoint of religion, ideology, history and tradition, culture would have a social function where the culture would exist as a whole in a society. Globalization has always been associated with the notion of cultural difference. With the increased appreciation of globaliza